Bob Harrison said:
> You are not a commercial beekeeper? (...) I only ask as the people
I am talking to are.
No, I'm not a commercial beekeeper. Nor have I talked to you in
private. So it seems that I'm irremediably below your minimaly
acceptable standard of credibility. Unfortunately, I can do nothing
about that.
> I had quite a few emails from my fans saying my post was right on.
Would you be kind enough to be a little more precise about that? Have
you got e-mails saying that you are right about Brazilian beekeepers
having a "strict schedule of requeening with European queens"? And
that "commercial beekeepers in Brazil have been flooding the area
with European queens now for 49 years on a regular basis"?
Because that's the only portion of you post I contested. Not that I
agree 100% with all the rest, but the message you quoted has nothing
to do with what I was saying. BTW, those complaints can be new for
you, but they have been around here for some time. Due to my
skeptical nature, I don't usually judge things after having heard
only one side, but maybe I could offer another look on that matter,
if you or your lurker fan wanted. In another topic, of course.
Back on distribution of European queens: I find it hard to believe
that you got this information from any Brazilian beekeeper. Not even
from one who could want to fool you, know why? "Europeanists" in
Brazil are, at this very moment, fighting hard and loud to try
changing the mind of the "africanists". They offer a mostly
simplistic solution - requeening with open mated European queens and
destroying every feral AHB colony. They quote writings from 30 or 40
years ago, and have a religious faith on all of that. Maybe, being at
their side, you could tell them one or two little things, because
they accept no ponderings from any AHB keeper. They have no results
to show but a couple of supposedly well succeeded beekeepers over a
couple of seasons or so. None of them would tell you what you have
said here, because that's exactly the opposite they complaint about -
Brazil's full africanization.
In the other side, most africanists see European bees mainly as a
source of harsh diseases, like AFB which has never been detected in
Brazil (despite its broad ocurrence in Argentina). Moreover, many
others fear that the introduced European bees will prompt the use of
antibiotics and acaricides, which could eventually contaminate the
exported honey and cause an international ban, just like the one on
Argentina's and China's two/three years ago. If any africanist knew
something about a big operation of europeanization in course, you can
be sure that he/she wouldn't tell you in private, but would
immediately blow the whistle everywhere instead.
So, unless you prove that I'm wrong, I can only imagine that you
inferred this situation from quick readings and light talkings. Maybe
the main source of mistake here is the reeuropeanization (wow! almost
a German word...) program, led by Kerr and others in the late
60's/early 70's. Those guys imported some mated Starline/Italian
queens from US, then produced and distributed some 23,000 queens. The
number varies according with who is telling the story, but the range
is usually 20-25 thousand. Only recently I read about 30,000 in an
article from Malcolm Sanford in ABJ (2004), but my copy was
translated, so I'm not sure it was a translation mistake, or someone
just told Malcolm the wrong number. Mark Winston and Dewey Caron use
23,000 in their excellent books on aficanization.
Anyway, these differences are totally irrelevant, IMHO. Kerr et al.
claim the program helped a lot. I just can't be so sure. First,
Brazil is a huge country - only 10% smaller than US. What do you
think about solving the problem of AHB aggression in US by
distributing a proportional number of Italian queens?
Second, a small detail not many people pay attention to: all the
queens were virgin. Can you imagine what's the probability of success
in introducing a *virgin*, *italian* queen in a africanized colony?
Done by a mostly unskilled and annoyed beekeeper? What about
implementing such a program in US nowadays? Do you think it would
make any difference? Do you still think it can really have helped to
tame AHB in Brazil?
> One of the people I have been talking to *is* the queen breeder in
> Argentina shipping in the Italian queens.
Argentina's situation is completely different from Brazil's. You
can't extrapolate.
>Barry Seargant of South Africa saw that the method Joao describes is
as primitive as it gets...
It's kind of ironic that you bring Barry Sergeant to that discussion,
because he's a harsh critic of some ideas you defend (see
http://www.beesource.com/pov/ahb/sergeant.htm), not of mine, as
you'll see below.
> I am happy the primitive methods you are using are working for you
but there are better ways
That's a good example of how a quick read can lead you to a total
misunderstanding (or my communication skills are indeed far worse
than you have kindly qualified). I was talking about my country, so I
told you what I observe, what I see happening and what I learn from
many beekeepers from most regions. It's not to say that I agree with
those "primitive" practices, au contraire. You surely don't know that
I too like very much to help beginners. Besides participating as an
"answerer" in some discussion groups for several years, I wrote and
maintain a large faq on beekeeping (some 100 pages, printed)
available for anyone who can read in Portuguese
(http://www.apicultura.com.br/apifaq/). If the hit counter is right,
and the fellows that send me messages are not simply being utterly
kind, I may think that I have objectively been helping a lot of
people.
It's a pity you can't read Portuguese to check exactly how primitive
the methods I use and recommend are (no, wait, forget it. I'm not a
commercial :). In fact, I have tried hard to make people turn to a
more rational beekeeping. Obviously, it doesn't include smuggling of
European bees and acaricides. But all the good practices everyone
here knows, unfortunately, are not widely adopted in Brazil, so I try
to do my (voluntary) part, and always want to learn new and better
ways.
> I respect you Joao hope we can agree to disagree.
No problem, of course. I've been doing that in the last 19 years
(about beekeeping). And I don't see any respectful disagreement as an
insult or anything like that. Provided we keep fighting only with
ideas and not with some some cheap rhetorical tricks, I'll be always
comfortable. I hope you will too.
Best Regards.
João Campos
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